Today in awful news, Leslie Jones’s personal website has been taken down after being targeted by a vicious hack. Hackers infiltrated the site with what appeared to be naked photos of the comedian, as well as images of her passport and driver’s license, private photos of her with various celebrities, and a photo of dead gorilla (and meme that refuses to die) Harambe.

EXCLUSIVE: With Season 2 of Underground about to go into production, WGN America and Get Lifted Film Co. are deepening their relationship on American hidden history with another series. The company run by John Legend, Mike Jackson and Ty Stiklorious has inked a deal for early development on Black Wall Street, I’ve learned. Added to the mix is Get Lifted alum and Obamas first-date pic Southside with You actress-producer Tika Sumpter as an exec producer.

With additional time to get the deal in place for the WME-repped The Haves and the Have Nots star Sumpter in place, the overall agreement about the project focusing on what became one of the largest mass killings of African-Americans in the nation’s history came together pretty quickly, I’ve heard.

AUG. 24 2016 11:37 AM
Amid Controversy, the American Film Institute Has Canceled a Screening of Nate Parker’s Birth of a Nation
By David Canfield

The fallout of the controversy surrounding Nate Parker continues. The American Film Institute announced Tuesday that it has canceled an upcoming screening of The Birth of a Nation—Parker’s Sundance-winning sensation about slave rebellion leader Nat Turner—as well as a Q&A event with the director that was planned to follow. This would have marked Parker’s first major public appearance since his involvement in a 1999 rape case became widely known.

The story continues to get more complicated for Parker and his film’s distributor, Fox Searchlight, which has prepared a major awards campaign in advance of an Oct. 7 release date. (This remains, for now, unchanged.) After Deadline first broke details of the case—in which Parker and co-writer Jean Celestin were charged with the rape of an 18-year-old classmate during their time at Penn State University, with Parker being acquitted and Celestin found guilty of sexual assault—Variety then discovered that the alleged victim, whose name Slate is not publishing, died by suicide in 2012 after several prior attempts.

AFI’s decision to cancel its screening of Birth of a Nation comes a week after this latest revelation. “I have been the recipient of many different passionate points of view about the screening, and I believe it is essential that we discuss these issues together—messenger and message, gender, race, and more—before we see the film,” AFI dean Jan Schuette said. “Next week, we will be scheduling a special moderated discussion so we may explore these issues together as artists and audience.”

According to Variety, AFI still intends to screen Birth of a Nation at some point, and Fox Searchlight remains committed to the film despite having to navigate an increasingly troubling set of circumstances.

Why America Needs a National Lynching Memorial
Bryan Stevenson wants us to remember our history of racial terror.

MAURA EWINGAUG. 23, 2016 6:00 AM

“…The big challenge today is that we’ve become acculturated to not take the victimization of people of color seriously. The police violence that has generated more activism isn’t new; it has been going on for decades. We react more to strong reactions than we react to the actual violence and victimization. I think until we confront that, until we challenge that, we’re not going to make the progress that we want to make.

If we want to understand police violence today, we have to understand how this presumption of dangerousness and guilt that gets assigned to black and brown people was created. And you can’t understand that without understanding the history of enslavement; without understanding this era of racial terror; without understanding segregation. So, yes, everything we do is rooted in the idea that the contemporary issues that we’re facing are connected, shaped, and in many ways caused by this history of racial inequality that we’ve yet to confront.”
…http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/08/bryan-stevenson-interview-lynching

On Sunday, Yahtzee posted this link to a great article about Bryan Stevenson. It’s long, I had to print it, but it is a great read covering much of his own personal history. I hope that some folks with resources come forward to assist the financing of the museum he is building in Alabama.

PROFILES AUGUST 22, 2016 ISSUE
THE LEGACY OF LYNCHING, ON DEATH ROW
In Alabama, Bryan Stevenson is saving inmates from execution and memorializing the darkest episodes of America’s past.
By Jeffrey Toobin

MANY DONORS TO CLINTON FOUNDATION MET WITH HER AT STATE
BY STEPHEN BRAUN AND EILEEN SULLIVAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) — More than half the people outside the government who met with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state gave money – either personally or through companies or groups – to the Clinton Foundation. It’s an extraordinary proportion indicating her possible ethics challenges if elected president.

At least 85 of 154 people from private interests who met or had phone conversations scheduled with Clinton while she led the State Department donated to her family charity or pledged commitments to its international programs, according to a review of State Department calendars released so far to The Associated Press. Combined, the 85 donors contributed as much as $156 million. At least 40 donated more than $100,000 each, and 20 gave more than $1 million.
…
The meetings between the Democratic presidential nominee and foundation donors do not appear to violate legal agreements Clinton and former president Bill Clinton signed before she joined the State Department in 2009. But the frequency of the overlaps shows the intermingling of access and donations, and fuels perceptions that giving the foundation money was a price of admission for face time with Clinton. Her calendars and emails released as recently as this week describe scores of contacts she and her top aides had with foundation donors.
…
Read more…

Mrs. Clinton is up by around seven percentage points in polling averages. But historically, a seven-point victory for the president’s party in the national popular vote is not the way to start a wave election. Richard Nixon’s huge victory in 1972 didn’t give Republicans the House. Neither Ronald Reagan nor George H.W. Bush took the House in 1984 or 1988. Bill Clinton didn’t retake the House in 1996.

The president’s party had down-ballot success in those elections, but gains were generally modest.

A Hillary Clinton landslide, though, might be likelier to result in a big shift in the House than in the past. That’s because the relationship between presidential and down-ballot vote choice has tightened. In 2012, President Obama’s share of the vote tracked very closely with the result of contested House races, albeit with Democratic and Republican incumbents tending to do a bit better. This is a long-term trend.

This is only a very small piece of the puzzle, but it’s an important one. There is less ticket-splitting than there used to be, so where a presidential candidate wins, members of their own party tend to win, too. More so than in the past, anyway.

I can’t honestly describe Donald Trump’s so-called “outreach” to African Americans as a joke – because it’s not funny. But it certainly isn’t serious. As Ed Kilgore wrote the other day, his appeal to Black voters is actually directed at White voters. Here’s a great example:

Trump’s fundamental pitch to African-Americans was the hoariest of all conservative cross-racial appeals: the “plantation” meme whereby black folk are scolded as suckers for supporting a Democratic Party interested only in their votes and in keeping them dependent on government.

Yep. Nothing more, nothing less that Mitt Romney’s “free stuff.”

But over the last couple of days, Trump and his supporters have managed to dig the ditch even deeper. Last night on the O’Reilly Factor, the Republican nominee basically alluded to giving a wink and a nod to police brutality.

Pushed by Fox News host Bill O’Reilly to provide specifics on curbing violent crime in cities like Chicago, Donald Trump said Monday that he would simply put “tough” cops in charge.

“So, specifically, specifically. How do you do it? How do you do it?” O’Reilly asked.

“I know police in Chicago,” Trump replied. “If they were given the authority to do it, they would get it done.”

“How? How?” O’Reilly pressed.

“You have unbelievable—how? By being very much tougher than they are right now,” Trump said. “They are right now not tough. I mean, I could tell you this very long and quite boring story but when I was in Chicago, I got to meet a couple of very top police. I said, ‘How do you stop this? How do you stop this? If you were put in charge,’ to a specific person, ‘Do you think you could stop it?’ He said, ‘Mr. Trump, I would be able to stop it in one week.’ And I believed him 100 percent.”

That gives Trump a modicum of deniability if anyone accuses him of promoting police brutality. But everyone knows exactly what he means – just like we knew what he was referring to when he suggested that “2nd amendment people” have a way of dealing with Hillary Clinton. This has been Trump’s racialized message all along. From the time he called for the death penalty for black and brown teenagers who were falsely accused in the Central Park murder to his law and order message at the Republican Convention, he’s been consistent on this one.

NEW YORK (AP) — How do you follow winning Olympic gold at the Rio Olympics? How about a chance to see “Hamilton” on Broadway?

The Tony Award-winning smash musical on Tuesday night welcomed the U.S. women’s gymnastics team — Simone Biles, Aly Raisman, Gabby Douglas, Madison Kocian and Laurie Hernandez — who gave the show a standing ovation and greeted the cast onstage afterward at the Richard Rodgers Theatre.

The gymnasts, dressed in skirts and rompers, sat together in Row G to take in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hip-hop-flavored biography about the first U.S. treasury secretary, a night that had athletic gold meeting theatrical gold.

“I thought you were amazing,” Raisman told Tony Award-nominee Brandon Victor Dixon, who just happened to be making his debut appearance replacing Tony Award-winner Leslie Odom Jr. as Aaron Burr.

“Gymnastics is my favorite Olympic sport, hands-down. Since the days of Kim Zmeskal, I’ve been about the U.S. gymnastics team. So, I love these ladies. I’m so proud of them. I worship them. I think they’re amazing and I got so hyped when I heard they were in the audience tonight,” Dixon said.

Black Girls Rock!

Flickr Photos

Potus Takes Oath of Office

Flotus & Daughters at Great Wall of China

My Brothers Keeper

AFRO PUFFS

Most Adorable Shoe Stealer

Six Little Babies

Fatherhood

Even though 3Chics Politico is written and curated by three women: Ametia, Rikyrah, and SouthernGirl2, I must nominate this as one of the most engaging blogs I've found. Devoted to politics and culture, these three shine a light on contemporary life with humor and spirit.